“Ae Ri, are you alright?”

I just let out a sound from my throat.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Mother’s voice sounded concerned. Why couldn’t she leave me alone? Die in silence as I was drowning in my own tears and sorrow?

“Jun Hyung’s worried for you dear…”

I closed my eyes. How much time did I spent under that blanket, refusing to meet anyone, even the sun’s rays? How much time did I spent crying all by myself? I fell. In the darkness of my sorrow was no place for anybody else apart from me. So I continued to ignore the sounds that were around me, the people that came looking for me, the voices that kept calling my name…

Till one day when I said to myself ‘Stop!”.

I could feel Jun Hyung’s eyes on my back as I left the house and went outside the courtyard. The market was crowded just like always. The people were talking loudly enough to be heard from afar, not having a care in the world. And yet, I could not see or hear any of those. The only sound that I was hearing was the beating of my own heart, that I cursed so many times in my sleepless nights.

I wondered on streets, without a destination, without carrying about the houses that I passed by or the people that looked at me strangely. And then I met with this crowd of children that were staring over the stone wall of a house. I raised my eyes. There was a wedding going on. The bride and the groom were both wearing simple, white and red clothes that were showing off their fortune through the material. Silk. The relatives were watching over them from the sides, while in front of them, right across the long table on which the food was put on the right and on the left of the silver goblets, there was this old man that I recognized to be the Minister of Rites. He was saying something. Then someone brought the duck who’s beak was tied with a red string and the groom bowed in front of